OPINION (AN COLÚN): Lurching from one crisis to another

LIFE feels very cruel at the present time. As we emerge from the two year crisis of the pandemic another crisis has erupted in Ukraine.
Today is a day of freedom because we can discard our masks, we can hug and shake hands again.
Some of us of course will continue to wear masks and will continue to keep their distance. That is their prerogative. But many of us will gladly, delightedly, kick the pandemic and all its associated things to touch. It was an extremely bizarre, strange time when the world became profoundly weird and emotionally cold. Our dreams and plans were placed in a state of suspended animation and we had to wait patiently for a very long time.
Now, in the very week when the last trappings of the horrible pandemic are cast aside, an ogre has arisen in the east. Raining down destruction on innocent people and causing untold suffering, the mask has slipped from Putin's face and we see him for what he really is - a brutal tyrant. Everything that comes out of his mouth is lies. You cannot believe a word that he says. He is the personification of Orwell's stark words - “Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth...If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - for ever.” Putin is that boot, smashing down on the innocent faces of the Ukrainian people. But the Ukrainians love freedom. Therefore, they have grabbed that boot and they are pushing back. Putin's response has been the typical response of any warped individual in our lives - more aggression, more threats, more madness. Now he is threatening the whole of mankind with nuclear holocaust. Suddenly he has thrown us back to the Cold War and the possibility of the world's superpowers firing nuclear missiles at each other. We were supposed to have left that time behind. In the 1990s, Russia was on a democratic trajectory. However, malignancy stopped the trajectory in its tracks and started back-pedalling. Yeltsin, we learned, was an alcoholic and a bully. He handed over the reins of power to his underling, Putin. Initially, Putin seemed to be a decent man but gradually all the classic human problems began to arise - machismo, power-lust, greed, coldness, cynicism, an abhorrence of humanity's gentler qualities.
Now Putin looks like our crazed elderly relative. Unfortunately, this particular nutty relative has access to nuclear missiles. Some of us are praying that there will be a coup d'état and he will be taken out. What a blessing for the world it would be if he was assassinated. Are there any decent men left in his entourage who would do that or are they all cap-doffing cronies?
An Irish friend of mine spent a year in Ukraine in the 1990s and he still has a number of friends in the country. He loves the Ukrainians. He thinks they are a wonderfully decent, good-humoured, intelligent people. However, he says, underneath that decency and intelligence there is an incredible toughness. Underestimate them at your peril. Yes, of course they are fearful, of course they hate war, but they won't retreat. Sometimes the attitude of 'no surrender' is the only acceptable response to the aggression coming at you.
My Irish friend tells me that one of his Ukrainian friends was killed by the Russians in Kiev this week. He said another friend was throwing molotov cocktails at the Russians.
My Irish friend sent me a picture of a family he knew. The picture showed them in an underground shelter in Kiev making molotov cocktails.
Another family he knew has fled the capital city and joined the vast number of refugees. This time last week they were living a comfortable, western lifestyle. Now they are living a nightmare. All because of one man.
An English friend of mine has lived in Russia for the last 25 years. I visited him in St Petersburg in 1998 and we had a wonderful time in that very beautiful city. Like many people living in Russia he is horrified by what Putin is doing and he wants the war to end. He wrote a poem this week which was extremely critical of Russia's dictator.
Many of us are praying that there is enough people like my English friend in that benighted country who will come together to form a critical mass, who will rise up and bring about a return to normality and peace.
As one Russian journalist powerfully wrote this week, Russia's political scene is still under the sway of the ideology of Ivan the Terrible. For all our sakes that disgusting ideology needs to be brought to an end.